Thursday, May 19, 2011

Our very first 5k is the Never Quit Beach Fest this Saturday at 5pm on Jacksonville Beach! We picked that one since it's at our favorite place, the beach of course, so we figured it would be fun and not super competitive. I'm looking forward to it and think I will be able to finish the race by jogging the whole time. We got through 5 weeks of the 9 week 'Couch to 5k' program consistently and then vacation hit and we got busy with a few things afterwards and now it's just about race time.

This past Sunday I decided to skip ahead to the final day of the program, which was a 5 minute warm-up walk followed by 30 minutes of jogging. That was a bit of a step up from the last day I had done, which was 8 minutes of jogging twice with walking in between. But I made it through the whole way without stopping and the total was 3.01 miles, pretty close to the 3.1 miles that a 5k equals. My average pace per mile was 11:31 and I think that included the 5 minutes of walking, so that was pretty good I thought.

It was my original goal to be able to finish the 5k and I was hoping to be able to jog most of it. Now my goal is to be able to do that, but to get the best pace possible, for sure wanting to be under a 12 minute pace. The only potential thing getting in the way may be the heat. When I jogged it on Sunday night, the weather was around 74 degrees with a nice cool breeze around sunset. This Saturday it's going to be a high of 90 and the race is at 5pm, but at least it's at the beach and I'm hoping for a nice cool breeze.

The Never Quit Beach Fest has ballooned.
500 participants in 2009
2000 in 2010
6000 in 2011

At the finish line:
Kona Brewing Company Longboard girls will place a lei around your neck, Peterbrooke will give you your chocolate dipped strawberry and Tropical Smoothie will hand you your cold smoothie.
Ladies, please head to the Red Carpet to have the Naval Officer present you with your Sea Turtle Pendant.

After the run...
1. Aloha Festival, get ready to attend one of the most amazing beach parties. The sound system is massive, Sight & Sound went all out, the bands are perfect, amazing food, beer, drinks, giant LED screen showing pictures of you running from that same days event will make for an amazing and very moving evening. This will be a great post race finale! Each participant will receive 2 Longboard Lager beers for free. Mmmm...beer....
2. Firemen will be at the finish to rinse you off in the Quality Suites Parking lot.
3. The generous people at the Quality Suites have ordered 6,000 towels so that you can dry off and they have changing rooms available.
4. Across the street there are hair stylists ready to do up the ladies hair (1st come 1st serve)

Check out the website for lots more details about the cause and fun pictures! They take everyone's picture at some point and make it available for free on their website, so that should be fun to see also. Good times ahead!